Ashes

“I hate the savage you imagine me to be: if I ever wanted to eat you, I would cook and season you first. I don’t crave the taste of blood the way you do.”“ASHES” is a photographic project by Funesta, born from anthropological research into the figure of the “witch” as a founding myth of women’s emancipation from patriarchal control. The term is traced back to its sexist and divisive roots—roots that justified persecution and the execution of countless women.“ASHES” embraces a collective self-awareness that reclaims the word witch, even in its most violent and dehumanizing connotations, transforming stigma into power. The project is not about victory or defeat, but about testimony and tool-building: a manifesto of protest, resistance, and solidarity against imposed constraints.What happens when the accused accepts the charge? When she reshapes it into her own form of “monstrosity,” refusing shame and turning accusation into agency?After years of study and artistic practice, Funesta translates ritual, encounters with the unknown, self-emancipation, and political reflection into images. Drawing inspiration from thinkers such as Silvia Federici, Judith Butler, Andrea Long Chu, Laura Tripaldi, and Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, “ASHES” becomes a visual compendium—reworking occult symbolism and constructing the iconography of a new, self-aware witch.